


believing in heroes

by guycecil



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-21
Updated: 2014-04-21
Packaged: 2018-01-20 06:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1500503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guycecil/pseuds/guycecil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And how to become one. </p><p>Kakashi goes down on a mission and, since the boys are incompetent, Sakura takes things into her own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	believing in heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline is a bit funny, because TECHNICALLY they wouldn't know Team Guy at this point in the story (this is set pre-Chuunin Exams since Sasuke loses his shit approximately 3 seconds after that arc finishes), but I'm ignoring that because I can't believe Guy would let Kakashi get away with not introducing their teams to each other.
> 
> Warnings: Fairly heavy gore and violence in the first part, and descriptions of illness throughout.

Sensei is worried. That’s the first thing Sakura notices, because it’s hard _not_ to notice, because his back is a straight line and his jaw is tense underneath his mask and he has a kunai clutched tightly in his right hand that sparks quietly with lightning every few seconds. Sakura is afraid that the light will give them away but sensei doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem.

The four of them crouch close to the ground with sensei in front, Naruto just behind Sakura, and Sasuke taking up the rear. Naruto shifts every now and then, and Sakura’s afraid _that’s_ going to give them away, too, but it hasn’t done anything yet and if it was a real problem then sensei would tell them. Sasuke-kun looks bored.

“Sensei,” Naruto whispers, and Sakura and Sasuke immediately hush him.

“Quiet!” sensei snaps, and from the tone of his hushed voice they know he means it for all of them. Sakura flinches and presses her back up against the cold brick wall. She _hates_ waiting.

Suddenly there are footsteps from around the corner and sensei’s arm flashes out, pressing the three of them up tight against the wall while he too leans back, electrified kunai tucked behind him so as to hide the light. Sakura holds her breath and tries her best to peer around sensei’s body to see three shinobi with blank headbands rush by, their arms flung out behind them.

“Two more,” sensei murmurs to them as he lowers his arm and relaxes his body, and Naruto lets out a small noise like a whine. Sensei doesn’t comment this time.

It’s taking longer than it should, Sakura thinks, casting a worried glance at the sky. Sensei had promised they would be out and headed back to Konoha by the time the moon was at its height in the sky, but the moon is almost directly above them already and they haven’t even gotten in yet. Sensei _promised_ , she thinks, and has to force herself not to bite her nails. Her mother tells her it’s a dirty habit not fit for a lady, let alone a kunoichi. Sakura thinks she’s seen more kunoichi with nails bit down to the quick than she has “ladies” with painted nails, but she never says that, and she tries to break the habit anyway.

“Sensei, I’m hungry,” Naruto whines, and as he says it Sakura hears Sasuke’s stomach growl and she realizes suddenly that half the nervousness in her stomach is actually hunger, and she tries to keep the puppy dog look out of her eyes when she glances up to see what sensei’s reaction will be.

His one eye is resolutely turned away from them, but she can see the increased tension in his jaw. “Soon,” he promises, picking at dirt under his nails with the electrified kunai. Sakura wonders if he even notices the electricity anymore.

“But…” Naruto doesn’t finish his sentence, but he looks like he’s about to cry. They haven’t eaten since breakfast, not even stopping for soldier pills or the small rations they brought with them.

Sensei is still refusing to look at them. The electricity flicking along his kunai flickers out, and he taps it nervously against his other palm. “Soon, Naruto, I promise,” he repeats, and Naruto just gives a dejected sigh and sags back against the wall, letting his legs slide out from underneath him.

Sakura can tell that sensei doesn’t want to be here because he doesn’t even bother to tell Naruto to get up, that they need to be ready at a moment’s notice. He wants to get out of here just as badly as they do, she realizes, and the thought makes her feel a little colder. She slips just a little bit closer to him, her arm just brushing where his sleeve is rolled up, and she can feel his gaze flick down to her for a second, but no more.

He puts his hand on her knee and rubs his thumb along the side gently. “Soon,” he promises again, and Sakura just hopes he’s right this time.

Another fifteen minutes pass before the last two leave the watch tower, leaping down from above them and landing so close that for a moment Sakura thinks they will be spotted, but by some lucky twist of fate the two shinobi never even glance in their direction. Sensei holds them back against the wall until the two enemies disappear into the forest, and then finally he gets to his feet, signaling for the three of them to say down for the moment, and disappears around the corner and into the tower.

Sakura holds her breath and counts the seconds until sensei comes back. Twenty-four seconds later, he returns and signals for them to follow. All three of them scramble to their feet and rush after him.

They climb the twisting stairs quickly but carefully, stopping at each landing so that sensei can glance upwards and try to see if there’s anyone else coming down. When they reach the third floor, sensei stops by the door and turns to Sakura even as he’s still craning his neck to make sure that no one is hiding on the stairs above them. He pulls three tags from his waist pouch and presses them into Sakura’s hands. “You know where these go,” he murmurs, keeping his voice quiet and low. “I showed you the spot yesterday. Take Naruto and Sasuke and get those in place, activate them, and then get out. Go back to the meeting spot and _don’t_ move from there until I come get you. Got it?”

Sakura nods hesitantly. “But… what about you?”

He smiles at her with his eye because she wouldn’t be able to see it if he smiled with his mouth, and then ruffles her hair. “Go.”

It’s not an answer, but Sakura doesn’t have much of a choice. She nods once, shoves the tags down her shirt because her waist pouch is too full for them, and then grabs the boys by the hand and drags them through the door.

The third floor lookout is about thirty-five feet off the ground. If they jump from here they can probably land without any major injuries or breaks, Sakura estimates, as long as they land like sensei has taught them. Worst case scenario, they might be able to stick their feet to the wall with chakra and run down, but Naruto’s chakra control is probably too sloppy for that, and Sasuke will get too impatient and then _his_ chakra control will slip and… Sakura figures it’s better for them to just jump.

But that’s not her primary concern right now. She’s more worried about getting these tags in place in time for sensei’s primary assault or… whatever he’s going to do. So she turns to her left, dragging the boys behind her, and counts the trapdoors as they pass. Supposedly, everything underneath the floor of the third floor lookout is store rooms and barracks, and one of those store rooms is full to the brim with… something. Sakura doesn’t know what, because sensei wouldn’t tell them. All he would say was that whatever was down there was a threat to Konoha, and it was important that they destroy it.

She counts the trapdoors as they pass them till she gets to six, and then she stops and reaches into the pouch at her hip and retrieves the seals that sensei gave her, passing one each to the boys. She glances at either of them and mouths, “On three,” and on her count, they simultaneously slap their seals onto the metal door, form the dog seal like sensei taught them, and then press their index fingers to their respective seals. Then, standing back, they watch as the seals disappear, camouflaging themselves and blending in with the smooth metal.

“Good work,” Sakura murmurs. “Let’s get out of here.”

The boys nod, and then Naruto hesitates. “Uh, how exactly _are_ we getting out of here?”

“No way to go but down,” Sasuke says wryly, and backs up to the wall. A moment later, he’s sprinting forward and vaulting over the knee-high wall that encircles the lookout, and then he’s gone from view, plummeting down toward the ground.

Not to be outdone, Naruto grunts and takes off after him. Sakura leans over the wall to make sure he lands safely – but unsurprisingly, he doesn’t. He loses his footing when he hits the ground, and though he thinks quickly enough to turn his momentum into a somersault, she can still see the awkward bend in his ankle when he goes down. Sasuke is helping him up as Sakura backs up to get some momentum, and then she too vaults over the side.

She lands much more elegantly, which brings a frown to Naruto’s face, but he doesn’t comment on it. “Back to the meeting place?” Sasuke asks.

Sakura nods. “And then we wait for sensei.”

“And where is your sensei?” asks a voice from behind her, and the boys suddenly go still, their eyes widening, and Sakura whips around and suddenly there are five of them – tall, dark-haired men with blank headbands, members of this group of mercenaries masquerading as a village of shinobi. Sakura makes a hasty retreat backwards until she feels her back hit Naruto’s and Sasuke’s, and she hears the quiet clink as they both draw kunai. Sakura pulls out her own and glares the tallest of their opponents down.

 He laughs. “Damn, but we’ve got a bunch of brats on our hands, don’t we? Look, how about you three hand over your little butter knives and we’ll just go grab your sensei and take care of you, hmm?”

There’s a flash of light from atop the watch tower that catches Sakura’s attention, and if she narrows her eyes she thinks she can be fairly certain that it’s sensei’s Raikiri, flickering as bright as always. Fine, she thinks. If sensei can fight his way out alone, then so can they. Gently, she presses her elbow into Naruto’s side because she can feel him shaking with anger and battle-ready excitement, and she murmurs, keeping her lips still, “Hound formation on three.”

She feels Sasuke’s slight shift in stance as reply, and the muscle’s in Naruto’s side tense as he grips his kunai tighter. “One,” she whispers.

“Two,” Naruto echoes, sliding one foot forward ever so slightly.

There’s a slight pause before Sasuke gives his count, and for a moment Sakura almost thinks he hasn’t heard it start. The leader of their enemies is approaching slowly with his hand outstretched for them to place their kunai in, and Sakura is half-prepared to give the final count _for_ Sasuke, and then he growls, “Three!” and they all spring into action.

Naruto slams his hands together and shouts, “Kage bunshin no jutsu!” and suddenly there are three more of him, one for each of the team, and then they’re splitting apart and Sasuke is shouting roughly and there’s a flash behind Sakura as she runs forward, leaping into the air and her Naruto clone gives her a boost so she’s flying through the air and landing on her enemy, digging her kunai into his shoulder right where sensei taught them it would hurt the most.

She leaps back just in time so she can land on her feet instead of going down with the enemy, and then whirls around in time to see Sasuke’s fireballs taking out the enemies easily, and she lets herself breathe. They can do this. They can make it out of here. They’re _shinobi_ , damn it, and they can fight like sensei taught them.

Naruto and his clone slam their fists simultaneously into their enemy’s chest, and the last of the opponents goes down. Sakura turns to retrieve her kunai, and then freezes, because the leader that she slammed her blade into is gone.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she whispers, whirling around and trying to find him, but he’s gone, and suddenly Sasuke’s Naruto clone disappears in a puff of smoke and the leader has his arm around Sasuke’s throat, lifting him off the ground with Sakura’s bloody kunai pressed to the side of his neck.

“Let him go!” Naruto snarls. He releases the last of his clones and prepares to call up new, fresh ones, but Sakura holds him back.

“Let him go,” she repeats, meeting the leader’s eyes. “We’ll do what you want, just let him go.”

“Sakura-chan!” Naruto whispers in shock, but Sakura ignores him.

The leader laughs. “You kids are so easy to freak out. All right, hand over your kunai and tell me where your sensei is.”

“I can tell you that right now,” says a low voice, and then Kakashi-sensei is stepping out of the shadows and, with a flicker, he’s got the kunai and the man’s arm away from Sasuke, who ducks out of the way, and then sensei has the leader by the throat himself, his own kunai pressed to the thin skin there. Sakura and Naruto approach slowly, and as they get closer, Sakura can see the anger in sensei’s eyes. She doesn’t know _why_ he’s angry, but he is, and it radiates off of him with furious killing intent.

“Where did he hide them?” sensei demands, pressing the kunai tighter to the leader’s throat.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” the leader spits out. He’s tugging at sensei’s arm, but the grip is too tight and he can’t pull it away.

“Where did he hide them?” sensei snaps again, and Sakura can see a small bead of blood drip down from the edge of the blade.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” the fake shinobi snarls. “Let me go unless you all want to die. There are others in the tower, they’ll come find you—”

“They’re already dead,” sensei says, and Sakura flinches, because there’s no emotion in his voice. He’s told them before that shinobi don’t kill unless they have to in order to protect the village or their team – and yet here is sensei, standing in front of them and openly admitting to killing someone, killing _multiple_ people, and it scares her.

“Sensei—” she starts, because he’s scaring Naruto and Sasuke, too, she can tell. They’re standing close together, which they never do except when they’re fighting. They’ve seen sensei get angry before, but never like this. The killing intent rolls off of him like chakra spilling out under Sakura’s feet when she walks on water.

“Stay back,” sensei barks, and Sakura does what she’s told without even thinking about it.

“If I die, they’ll know,” hisses the man that sensei has in a chokehold. “They’ll feel it, they’ll come find you.”

“Where did he hide them?” sensei repeats again. “Tell me that, and then I’ll consider letting you go.”

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” the man spits, and sensei slits his throat.

Sakura gasps and flinches backwards. Sensei wipes his kunai on his jacket and tucks it away before heading towards them, and for a moment Naruto takes a step backwards and sensei seems to realize what’s just happened because his face immediately softens. “Come on,” he says quietly, and holds a hand out towards them.

Immediately, the boys hurry forward, Sakura hard on her heels, and sensei quickly checks them over for injuries. Naruto’s ankle is definitely at least sprained, already starting to swell, but Sakura and Sasuke are mostly free of injuries other than a couple scrapes.

“All right,” sensei says, his voice low. “We need to get back to the tower so we can set off those seals you three placed. You did get them in place, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” Sakura says, indignant. What does he take her for?

Sensei nods and, as a unit, they all take off back towards the watch tower. Unfortunately, it seems that the fake shinobi’s warning about the others knowing when he died has turned out to be true, because they’ve only just made it to the shadow cast on the ground by the moon overhead behind the tower when they find themselves surrounded again.

“All right, Konoha,” growls one of them, a tall, burly man with scars across his chin. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. You’ve put up enough of a fight, but it’s time to give up.”

“I could say the same to you,” sensei says wryly, pushing Sakura and the boys behind him. She wants to step back out, to defiantly show him that she’s not just some innocent child, but she knows better.

“Then I’ll make you an offer.” The big man gives sensei a cold smile. “Give it up now or the kids die.”

Sensei flat out _snarls_ and Sakura is almost knocked off her feet by the anger that rolls off of him. “Try again,” he snaps. “Threaten my team again and you won’t live much longer.”

“You’re outnumbered six to one,” the big man says with a roll of his eyes. “Well, six to two, I guess. The kids might count as one all together, but.” He shrugs. “It won’t take us long to take them out. I don’t think you realize what you’re dealing with.”

“The White Fang was my father and Konoha’s Yellow Flash was my teacher,” sensei says flatly. “I don’t think you realize what _you’re_ dealing with.”

The big man barks out a laugh. “Copy Ninja Hatake Kakashi? Well then, let’s see what you’re made of. If you can keep us distracted for long enough then maybe we’ll let the kids go.”

Sensei tenses for an instant, and then suddenly he’s whipping around and he has the three of them in his arms and they’re flying through the air, landing almost gracefully on the first floor lookout. Sakura staggers when he sets them down, but he grabs them all by the wrist, Sakura’s hand brushing Naruto’s as he does, and stares them angrily, directly, in the eyes. “Don’t you move from this spot,” he barks, and the three of them curl in on themselves, and an instant later, he’s gone.

“What do we do?” Naruto whispers, and none of them has an answer.

The sounds of fighting draw their attention, and Sakura rushes to the wall to stare down at the mess below. Sensei has already taken out one of his enemies, and is knocking the head of another soundly against the wall by the time Sakura makes sense of the mess.

The last four keep their distance, watching warily and waiting for sensei to make his move. He has his headband pushed up, Sharingan staring back at the circling enemies. For a moment, there’s a stalemate, both sides waiting for the other to move, and then sensei strikes, knocking one of them away with a powerful kick to the stomach before turning away and launching his hands into a complicated series of seals.

Sakura sees it coming before he does – spots the one that sensei just knocked away slowly struggling upwards and yanking the sword off his back as sensei’s wall of earth sends two more flying. Sakura calls out to him desperately and she can feel the movement of her throat and the way the words scrape up through her mouth, but she can’t hear the words. The world seems to move just a bit slower as the man stands fully and staggers forward, and then his sword is flashing through the air and –

Sensei jerks painfully as the sword cuts through him, coming out the other side, and then freezes in place. The man behind him stumbles, and the sword jerks to the left, cutting through flesh, and Sakura’s heart stops.

“Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto shouts, desperation pushing him up against the wall and looking like he’s ready to leap down into the fray. His words must reach sensei though, because he suddenly reaches back for the man holding the sword and throws him over his head, jerking the sword out of his grip and sending him flying into the big man who spoke before, the only one left standing.

While the two of them struggle to get up, sensei reaches behind him and pulls the sword out of his body, letting it drop to the ground. There’s a stain spreading across the back of his jacket that makes Sakura’s throat go dry, but she can’t move, can’t speak, can barely even breathe.

Slowly, sensei walks forward, impossibly steady on his feet. His hand sparks with lightning for a moment and then suddenly everything is illuminated by the light of his Raikiri. His three students watch on as he kicks the man who stabbed him out of the way and grabs the jacket of the big man and drags him to his feet.

“No one touches my team,” he growls, low, but loud enough that Sakura can still hear him. “This is what happens to people who try.” And then his left hand flashes forward and through the man’s chest and –

Sakura chokes on her own breath, because when sensei’s hand comes back out of the man’s chest, there’s a dark lump in it, and she feels the bile rise up in her throat when she realizes it’s a human heart.

Sensei lets the man go and coldly watches him fall to the ground, dropping the heart on top of him when he collapses, eyes wide and staring in shock up at the stars.

Then sensei turns to the man who stabbed him. The man scrambles backwards, terror written across his face, but sensei wraps his bloody hand around the man’s throat and lifts him off the ground. From where they’re standing, Sakura can clearly see the man’s face as he desperately claws at sensei’s hand, but all it does is put blood on his own hands.

“Run back to your boss,” sensei says, his voice flat, “and tell him that if he ever threatens my team or my village again, then he knows exactly who and what is coming for him.” He drops him, and the man lands on his knees, choking and clutching at his throat. As soon as he can breathe, though, it only takes one glance up at sensei before he’s clambering to his feet and taking off to the west at a sprint.

Once the man is out of sight, sensei sways dangerously on his feet, and then he collapses, and it takes all of Sakura’s strength, but she still makes it to him before either of the boys.

* * *

 

Sakura won’t cry. She _won’t_ cry, she absolutely _will not cry_ , not in front of the boys, not now, not when she needs steady hands and a clear head. She can cry later, when the boys are asleep and sensei is better and he can hold her and promise that it’s not what she thinks, that he was never going to _die_ , don’t be silly, Sakura.

Naruto is desperately going through their bags, trying to find the medical kit they know sensei _always_ brings with them, while Sasuke heaves sensei into a sitting position so that Sakura can try to peel away his flak jacket.

“Hurry,” Sasuke grits out, and Sakura does her best to move quickly before Sasuke loses his hold. Sensei’s so much _bigger_ than they are – trying to carry him here, into the forest and out of plain sight, even with all three of them, was a desperate, agonizing struggle.

But sensei isn’t going to die. Sakura has already told herself that a million times, because he _promised_ , way back on their first mission out of the village, when they were in the Land of Waves and Zabuza nearly killed him and he couldn’t move for days and she was there when he finally woke up and she cried and he _promised_.

Finally they manage to get the jacket off and Sasuke does his best to lay sensei back down slowly. The shirt Sakura gives up as a lost cause, and just digs out a kunai and slices it open. She hesitates for a moment and finally just decides to leave the mask, slicing around it and then slowly peeling away his shirt from the right side of his body. The dark fabric is stained even darker with sensei’s blood, and when she finally gets his shirt away from the area, she has to look away, her voice and breath and bile all catching in her throat at once.

“Shit,” Sasuke hisses. “Naruto, where’s that medical kit?”

“I’m _looking!_ ” Naruto snaps back. “I can’t… I can’t find it…” He’s scared, Sakura realizes. They both are. They _all_ are. This is their sensei, lying on the ground in front of them with his eyes closed and his breath rasping around the blood in his mouth, staining his lips, and if they don’t do this right he’ll _die_.

“Go help him look,” Sakura tells Sasuke, and when he’s gone, she turns back to sensei and slowly pushes him onto his left side and finishes cutting away the rest of his shirt. Her mouth is dry. There’s so much blood that she can barely even see the wound itself, and she has to close her eyes for a moment, steel herself, and then Naruto is falling to his knees next to her, pressing the medical kit into her hands.

“Do you know what to do?” he asks, and Sakura wants to scream. No, she _doesn’t_ know what to do. She has no _clue_ what to do, doesn’t even know where to start. All she knows are the basic field tips sensei gave them, showing them how to clean the needle and thread it. She wonders if he ever thought of a situation like this, of a time when those little things he taught them to handle small cuts would be used to save his life.

“Sasuke,” she says, her voice coming out raspy because her throat is so dry. “Get some water and boil it.”

“With what?” he demands. “Am I just supposed to start a fire while he lies there and dies?”

“Do you know ninjutsu or not?” she snaps, whipping around to face him. He goes pale – paler than usual – and she turns back around, closes her eyes for a second and takes a deep breath. The world around her smells like death.

She feels Naruto’s fingers on hers, and she turns her hand to squeeze his. “You can do this,” he murmurs, and she opens her eyes.

A moment later, Sasuke is shoving a canteen wrapped in towels into her hands. She takes it, feels the searing heat even through the insulation, and carefully dips the needle into the water inside, disinfecting it as best as she can. The boys watch on as she pulls it back out, retrieves the thread, and slips it through the eye of the needle. Her hands are shaky, and it takes a few attempts before she finally gets it, and then she ties a tight knot and swallows hard.

“Hold him still,” she tells Naruto and hands the needle to Sasuke, before taking a few of the clean scraps of sensei’s shirt and, soaking them with the water in the canteen, using them to clean away the worst of the blood from the wound.

Once it’s clean, she takes the needle back from Sasuke and doesn’t let herself think – she just does. Her hands shake, and the stitches are sloppy and hasty, but she does what she has to, and when it’s done, she moves around to the back and does the same there. She cringes every time the needle pierces skin, but she doesn’t have any other option.

Afterwards, she has the boys help hold him up while she wraps bandages around his middle. Naruto sacrifices his jacket to help keep him warm, and then they eat half a ration each. Sakura doesn’t know why the boys aren’t eating more. All she knows is that, personally, she can’t bring herself to put another bite in her mouth or she thinks she’ll vomit.

Naruto goes exploring for a little after that, and Sasuke sits by and anxiously sharpens his kunai and counts his shuriken. The sound grates on Sakura’s ears, but she stays quiet rather than say anything about it. He probably needs the distraction.

She sits by sensei’s side, massaging her aching feet until Naruto gets back. He looks disappointed, like he’d hoped to find that the village walls were only a few hundred feet away, only to discover that all that was out there were trees. They’re all so exhausted that they agree that a watch probably isn’t necessary tonight, not with the way that sensei scared off the last of the fake shinobi, so they silently get ready for bed. Naruto climbs into Sasuke’s bedroll rather than get out his own, but the other boy doesn’t comment, and the two fall asleep with their backs pressed against each other.

Sakura layers her blankets over sensei’s own, which she’s already spread over his body, and then lies down next to him in the space under his arm. It’s cold, and she’s scared and lonely, but she has to be brave. She has to be strong because the boys need her and sensei needs her and she can’t afford to be weak right now.

It doesn’t stop the tears from coming, not when it hits her finally that sensei is probably going to die, that her sloppy stitches will mean nothing if they can’t find help in time, and she knows they have no way to signal Konoha to let them know of what’s happened. No one is going to show up to help them. No one is going to come save them. They’re alone in a forest god knows how far away from the village with no chance of help any time in the near future, and Sakura is _terrified_ , so she curls in on herself and cries until she falls asleep

* * *

She wakes in the morning to find her back drenched in sweat. She sits up quickly, for a moment confused about what’s going on, until she turns and realizes that the sweat isn’t hers – it’s sensei’s.

His face is pale and his hair sticking to his face. When she touches her fingers to his forehead, he’s burning up, and she has to hold back a sob. Clearly her weak attempt at medical attention hadn’t come in time. The wounds are already infected.

She wets one of the clean scraps of sensei’s shirt that are still left and presses it to his forehead while she inspects the wounds. The stitches must have broken open during the night, because his bandages are drenched in blood, and she has to cut them away and desperately try to re-stitch up the gashes before the boys wake up. She can’t let them know, they _can’t_ find out, they absolutely cannot know that sensei is dying. Because that’s what this means. An infection in an already horrible wound, out here with no mednin to come help, no chance of getting back to Konoha or contacting them for support, no hope of stumbling upon a small village that might be able to help them. Sensei’s going to die out here, and she can’t let the boys know.

“Sakura-chan?” Naruto’s sleepy voice reaches her, and Sakura hastily scrubs at her cheeks with her dirty hands before he stumbles over to her, still sleep-slow and yawning. “Is he okay?”

“Of course,” Sakura says. She has the leftover bloody bandages balled in her fists, and she shoves them between her knees. She feels tired and dirty and exhausted – what’s a little more blood added to the mix?

Naruto is quiet for a moment. “He looks…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, and then sighs quietly, choosing not to question it. “I’m hungry,” he whines.

“Wake up Sasuke-kun and dig out the soldier pills, then,” Sakura tells him, and when Naruto makes a face, she continues, “We can’t afford to waste our rations right now. We don’t know how long it’ll take us to get back to Konoha.”

“I’ll get the map!” Naruto announces, and quickly heads off to wake Sasuke and try to figure out how to get home. Privately, Sakura doesn’t think that the map will do them much good – they have no idea where they are, and even if they did manage to figure it out, they hardly have the strength to carry sensei back with them. She’s fairly certain, at this point, that they’re not going to last very long out here.

They down their soldier pills once Sasuke is awake and Naruto digs out the map, but, as it turns out, heading home will have to wait, because they quickly discover that they’re out of water, Sakura having used the last of it to re-clean sensei’s wounds, and trying to go _anywhere_ without some form of hydration in their bodies sounds like a terrible idea. So Naruto’s plans to start trekking back home get put on the back burner momentarily and Sakura sends the boys out into the forest to try to track down some water.

As soon as the boys are gone, Sakura tries to clean up the area, shoving sensei’s dirty bandages and the used scraps of shirt into the bottom of her bag where the boys won’t find them. The few clean scraps they have left she tucks into an outside pocket where they’ll be more accessible, and then she quickly returns to sensei’s side. He’s still burning up, not that she’s overly surprised. She has no way to try to disinfect his wounds, nor would she even properly know how to handle that.

It’s not as if Sakura hasn’t felt fear before, because of course she has. They thought Sasuke died on that mission in the Land of Waves, they thought _sensei_ died on that same mission, at least twice. And it’s not as if this fear runs any deeper than any of those times, it’s not as if she cares about sensei more than she cares about Sasuke, because they’re both so equally important to her, but… Back then, she hadn’t felt so helpless. Back then, her feelings for Sasuke had been driven by a little girl crush. Back then, they hadn’t even really been a team yet, just a bunch of kids all trying to be better than the others and a jounin who hadn’t quite figured out how to handle them yet.

Things are different now. They’re a team now, a real one, and all of the boys are so important to Sakura that she doesn’t know what she would do if she lost a single one. Naruto, Sasuke, sensei… They’re her family now. And she could lose one of them right now and she’ll have to watch it happen and there’s nothing she can do to stop it.

“What’s wrong?” demands a deep voice from behind her, and Sakura realizes two things rather abruptly: one, Sasuke is back, and two, she’s crying.

She whips around, rubbing the tears away from her dirty cheeks and feeling absolutely mortified. “Nothing!” she says, and her voice rises at least an octave. “It’s fine.”

Sasuke stares her down from across their small clearing. “I’m not stupid,” he says, and she has to hold herself back from telling him that she _knows_ that. “What’s wrong?” His eyes flicker down to sensei. “Has he gotten worse?”

“No, he’s fine,” Sakura stammers quickly, putting all her will into making it sound true. Sasuke catching her crying is one thing – Sasuke finding out that sensei is dying is another. She knows how the boys are. If they know sensei is dying, they’ll destroy themselves trying to save him or avenge him. She won’t let that happen.

“Then what’s wrong?”

Sakura can’t even begin to describe the relief that rushes through her veins that Sasuke believes her. “It’s nothing,” she says, standing slowly and wiping her dirty hands on her dress. She wants a bath. She wants to be _clean_. She can feel the dirt sticking to every available surface of her body, and it’s killing her. “Did you find anything?”

Sasuke stares at her for a few more moments, not saying anything, and then slowly his stance shifts. He looks distinctly uncomfortable, and Sakura can’t figure out why until he crosses his arms over his chest and mumbles, “I know you’re scared.”

It’s a testament to Sakura’s growth in maturity that she neither falls to his feet weeping openly for the fact that he’s paying attention to her, nor does she burst out laughing at his obvious discomfort. She does feel her cheeks heat a little, but she quickly looks away. “I’m not—”

“Naruto’s scared, too,” Sasuke cuts her off, in a tone that says it’s not just Naruto he’s speaking for. “It’s… You don’t have to be. Scared, I mean. Naruto will make sure nothing happens to you. Or sensei.”

“I don’t need him to protect me,” she mumbles, and it’s true. She can take care of herself. She can take care of all of them, make sure that they’re _all_ safe. And she’s going to, she decides then. No more crying over sensei. He may be dying, but he’s not going to die, she decides. She’ll do whatever she has to in order to make sure her boys get home safe. Whatever it takes.

“Well, he’ll probably try to anyway,” Sasuke says, kicking roughly at the dirt with the bottom of his shoe. He still has that tone that tells her this isn’t just about Naruto, but she doesn’t call him out on it.

Sakura doesn’t have an answer for him, though, so she turns towards their packs and pretends to look for something. “Did you find anything?” she asks again.

Sasuke is quiet for a beat longer than necessary before he responds. “I don’t think there’s anything out there to find. Naruto thinks if we can just figure out where we are, then we can use the map to get home, but…”

But they can’t carry sensei on their own. Not without exhausting themselves or ripping Sakura’s hasty, pathetic stitches. “We’ll figure something out,” Sakura murmurs. “Why don’t you go try to find Naruto? He shouldn’t be out wandering alone.”

Sasuke doesn’t point out the fact that he himself was out wandering alone just a few minutes ago, and Sakura is grateful for it. He may be a bit emotionally stunted at times, she thinks, but sometimes he sees things much more clearly than the rest of them.

Sakura hears their return long before she sees either of them, Naruto’s angry voice carrying through the forest and Sasuke’s deeper, clipped responses snapping back. When they finally break through the trees, Naruto looks furious and Sasuke’s mouth is pressed into a thin line.

“Sakura-chan!” Naruto shouts the moment he sees her. “Will you please tell this asshole that if we use the river I found as a landmark then we can _definitely_ get home to Konoha?”

“Will you tell dead last that trying to walk home from here would be suicide?” Sasuke snaps, turning to face Naruto. “You idiot, you think we can carry Kakashi on our backs all the way home from here? We’d kill ourselves from the exertion.”

“We can take turns!” Naruto protests. “What other choice do we have?”

“We could send word back to the village and ask for help!”

“Send word using _what?_ ”

“I don’t know, _you’re_ the genius here apparently, so you tell me!”

“Oh, I’ll tell you something all right, I’ll tell you exactly what you can do with that loud mouth of yours—”

“Stop fighting!” Sakura breaks in, surging to her feet and shoving the two of them away from each other. Naruto is trembling with rage, his fists clenched so tightly into fists that his knuckles are white. “Calm down,” Sakura snaps at him. “And you, too!” she adds in hastily when Sasuke opens his mouth. “We don’t have time to be arguing! Unless we stay calm and stick together as a _team_ , we’re never going to get out of here! What was the _first_ thing sensei taught us?”

“Those who abandon their friends are worse than trash,” they both mumble in synchronization, glaring down at the ground between their feet.

Sakura gives them both a firm shove in the chest, sending them both stumbling back a step or two. Naruto looks surprised at her strength. “We’re a team,” she snaps. “Act like it, unless you want to die.”

Neither of the boys says anything, so Sakura turns to Naruto. “Look,” she says, letting her tone soften. “I know you want to get back. We all do. But with sensei injured like this we have other factors we need to consider. For one, none of us is strong enough to carry him alone, which means that if we were attacked, only one of us would be ready to fight back at a moment’s notice, and one of us would have to stay behind to protect him. On top of that, traveling will exhaust us even further, and we would have no definite source of food or water if start moving, which means that if we run out of supplies, we’re out of luck.”

Sasuke is starting to look a bit smug, so she turns on him next. “And as for you!” she snaps. “Naruto’s not the only one who needs an attitude adjustment. Don’t be so quick to dismiss his ideas, especially when yours aren’t any better! Don’t just decide that he’s wrong before you even listen to him, you’re being unfair. Naruto’s right, we have no way of sending word back to Konoha. His way might not be the best, but yours isn’t either, so don’t act like you know better just because he was wrong about one thing!”

They both stare at her in shock for a few moments, and she feels her chest puff up a little bit with pride. That’ll teach them to act like brats.

“So…” Naruto’s expression is a mix of confusion and awe and fear. “What do we do?”

Oh. Sakura deflates a little. She hadn’t quite gotten that far yet.

“Well…” She glances around the clearing, casting around desperately for something to help her out, and her eyes finally fall on the empty canteens lying next to their packs. “We should at least find some water,” she decides quickly. “Naruto, why don’t you lead us to this river you found and we can refill the canteens and wash off a little. Maybe once we’re clean and hydrated, we’ll be able to think a little more clearly.”

They both look a little relieved to have at least some sort of direction to head in, and they quickly help her pack up the rest of their things. Once they’re ready, she and Sasuke heft sensei up into their arms as carefully as they can, and Sakura gives Naruto a small smile. “Lead the way,” she says gently.

The river is further than she anticipated, she finds out, but they finally arrive and she and Sasuke gently set sensei down on the ground before slumping down themselves. Sakura allows herself a few moments of rest before getting up to check sensei’s wounds.

She can hear Naruto inspecting the water behind her, and she glances up at Sasuke as she pulls away the blanket they were using to keep sensei warm. “Go swim,” she murmurs. “You’ll feel better when you’re clean.”

He sighs. “I’ll boil some water for us, first,” he says, and gets to his feet. He looks extremely burdened by the whole thing, but he starts to take his shirt off anyway.

Naruto somehow manages to splash Sasuke the moment his feet touch the water, which immediately pushes Sasuke to retaliate, and before long both boys are soaked. Sakura smiles privately to herself and wishes that was all they had to worry about right now.

While the boys are in the water, Sakura digs through their bags to see just what they have in terms of supplies and finds an old rag buried at the bottom of Naruto’s pack that she quickly soaks in the water Sasuke boiled for them and gently uses it to wipe the sweat from sensei’s face. He’s growing paler, his hair plastered to his head, and his breath rasps quietly in his throat with every movement of his chest. Sakura doesn’t know what’s going on inside of him – she doesn’t know how much damage that sword did, or what’s going on with the infection raging inside of him, and even if she did know, she wouldn’t know what to _do_ about it. She’s never felt so helpless in her life.

It’s all well and good to pretend they’re just on their way home from a normal mission when all she has to worry about is the boys accidentally splashing something they shouldn’t. It’s different when she has their sensei’s life in her hands. Especially when there’s a chance that she might let it slip between her fingers.

 _No_ , she hisses at herself, because she’s not going to let herself think like that. She can’t afford to think like that. Sensei _will_ survive. He’s not going to die out here. She won’t let him.

“Sakura-chan?” Something drips on her, and she looks up to see Naruto standing over her, hair still dripping wet. “You can go in now if you want. Sasuke and I will watch over him for a little.” He smiles. “You don’t have to do everything yourself.”

She _does_ , though, she thinks anxiously, her eyes darting back to sensei. She can’t leave him alone – what if he gets worse? What if the boys are too busy bickering to notice? What if something happens, what if they’re attacked and she’s caught that far away where she can’t protect him and—

“Go,” Sasuke grunts as he comes over and drops onto the ground, shaking his wet hair. “You smell.”

“Hey!” Naruto turns on Sasuke, glaring furiously. “You can’t talk to her like that! Apologize!”

Sasuke rolls his eyes, and Sakura smiles slightly, laying a hand on Naruto’s arm. “It’s okay, Naruto,” she murmurs. “Don’t worry about it.” Sometimes – not always, but sometimes – Sasuke manages to see things the way they really are, she thinks.

She keeps her underwear and her chest bindings, but she leaves her shorts and dress on a rock at the edge of the stream, and walks in slowly, hissing at the chill. She can’t help glancing back at the boys, who are already arguing over something, a slight twinge of embarrassment crawling down her spine. In the past, sensei has always made sure she has her privacy, occupying the boys with something somewhere else while she bathes, then carefully keeping watch with his back turned and a book out so she has someone watching her back.

She glances over at them again, and from this angle, sensei almost looks like he could be sleeping, blanket drawn up over him and his chin tucked against his chest with his pack under his head. Sakura feels the tears well up again, but she forces them down. She’s scared, but she’s not going to let it rule her. She’s going to get them out of this. She won’t let it beat them.

She sinks down into the water and lets it rush around her, carrying her hair forward in front of her face. A tiny turtle no bigger than her hand swims by on her right, not seeming to notice her at all. Slowly, she closes her eyes and pretends, just for a few moments, that everything is okay.

Later, she sits wrapped in one of the extra blankets while Sasuke heats up a single ration for them to share. Naruto pokes at the fire with a stick. “What about Kakashi-sensei’s dogs?” he suggests hopefully.

“Those aren’t regular dogs, idiot,” Sasuke grumbles. “They’re summons. Only he can call them. If we had summoning contracts of our own then maybe we could do something, but none of us is strong enough for something like that.”

“Hey!” Naruto surges to his feet angrily. “Speak for yourself! I’m—”

“Naruto, sit down,” Sakura cuts him off wearily. “Sasuke didn’t mean it like that and you know it. Calm down.”

Slowly, Naruto sits back down, resigned. “Well, there has to be _something_ we can do, right? We’re not just gonna get stuck out here forever. I mean, someone will come looking for us, won’t they? They have to.”

“We can hope,” Sakura murmurs.

“Look,” Sasuke says as he pulls the ration away from the fire and sets it on the ground so that all three of them can start eating. “There’s no point in sugar-coating it. We’re stuck out here. We have no way of contacting Konoha and there’s no one looking for us. They wouldn’t be expecting us until tonight, anyway. We can’t travel and we can’t send word, so all we can do is wait.”

“But what if they _don’t_ come looking for us?” Naruto asks, the fear starting to creep into his eyes as he begins to understand. “Then we’ll just be stuck out here.” He glances over at where sensei is lying on the ground behind them. “Can’t we just wait for sensei to wake up? He’ll know better what we have to do, right?”

“He’s not _going_ to wake up, moron,” Sasuke snaps. “Are you blind? He’s dying.”

“What?” Naruto’s eyes widen, shock passing over his face. “What are you talking about? He’s _sensei_.”

“Sasuke, stop it!” Sakura cuts in, alarmed. “Nobody’s dying, we’re all fine. Don’t say things like that!”

“I can’t tell whether you’re blind or stupid,” Sasuke sneers. “He’s not going to wake up. He’s clearly got some sort of infection and we have no way of treating it. He’s going to die.”

“Shut up!” Naruto growls, getting to his feet again. “Kakashi-sensei isn’t going to die! He’s…” He struggles to find a word. “He’s unstoppable! Nothing can beat him, definitely not some little paper cut!”

“You’re an idiot,” Sasuke informs him with a blank face. “Everyone dies, Naruto. When you’re a shinobi, you die even earlier. That’s how things work.”

“Stop it!” In a fit of childish anger, Sakura throws her blanket at them both, and it lands on top of their heads. They immediately scramble to get it off, and then stare at her in disbelief.

“Sensei is _not_ going to die, Sasuke,” she spits. She can’t remember the last time she felt so angry, but now it wells up, digging into every cell in her body, and she can’t hold it back. “Nobody is going to die. We are all going to make it out of this and get back home and nothing is going to stop us. I’m not going to let him die. It’s not going to happen.”

“What are you going to do?” Sasuke demands. “You’re not a mednin! You have no _clue_ what you’re doing!”

“That doesn’t matter!” She wants to hit something, wants to beat something up, wants to beat _Sasuke_ up, but she holds that back. “That’s not the _point!_ He’s not gonna die, so stop saying he is!”

“You sound like a child,” Sasuke growls.

“I _am_ a child!” she snaps back, and stomps away. She sits on the ground next to sensei and holds his hand in between hers and prays to every god her mother ever told her about when she was little that they can get through this.

* * *

 The day passes. Sasuke doesn’t say another word to her, though she can hear Naruto hissing to him to apologize. Naruto doesn’t say anything either, except to bring her food when he hears her stomach rumbling from across the clearing. Dark comes and it gets cold again and they huddle around Sasuke’s fire to eat and Sakura tries to wake sensei up so he can eat because he now hasn’t eaten in at least a day and a half and that can’t be good for him when he’s trying to fight off this infection. In the end, nothing works, so she just drips water into his mouth with the wet rag and hopes that some of that reaches him, if nothing else.

Then the next day comes, and that passes, too. Sasuke sharpens his kunai against a rock at the edge of the river. Naruto nervously paces the edge of the clearing at least a hundred times, climbs just about every tree within earshot of them, helps Sakura drip water down sensei’s throat, throws rocks into the river, practices throwing shuriken at a tree, breaks branches for firewood, and finds about thirteen other things to do, none of which occupy him for long. They’re all constantly on edge, about to snap or attack at a moment’s notice. They eat their last ration for dinner and Naruto pitches the empty container into the fire when they finish. He has tears in his eyes as he stalks away to the river. Sakura doesn’t have anything to say to him.

The next day they wake up tired and hungry. The exhaustion burns all the way down to their bones. Sakura washes her face in the river and finds another turtle sitting on a rock, but when she reaches out to touch it, it snaps at her and scurries away.

After that, she sighs and returns to land, where she spends a good three hours slumped against a tree with sensei’s hand between hers while she tries to rub some life back into it. She has no idea if it’s having any effect.

His breathing is shallower, she notices, and he rasps a little more with each breath in. His body feels like an open flame every time she touches it, and sweat drips from his temples. His only movements are his short breaths, and once she thinks she hears him whisper something, but she can’t make it out. The boys fill their canteens with water from the stream for her to use in an attempt to cool his body, but it does almost nothing. The helplessness is creeping up again, and she’s terrified.

Around noon, the heat becomes nearly unbearable, and they all strip down to only what’s necessary. Sakura keeps her shorts and chest bindings, which are filthy and painful at this point, but kicks her dress off to the side. Sasuke takes off only his shirt, but Naruto strips all the way down to his underwear and heads back to the river to let the rushing water cool him off.

Barely half an hour passes before Naruto screams.

Sakura has her eyes closed, resting against the tree still, but at the sound of Naruto’s voice she jumps up, dropping sensei’s hand and readying herself to fight. Sasuke has kunai in both hands and his Sharingan activated.

“What is it?” Sasuke demands as he and Sakura simultaneously reach Naruto, who has fallen rather unceremoniously on his butt in the river.

“Th-the…” Naruto raises a shaky hand to point at one of the rocks at the edge of the river. Sakura’s brows come together in confusion, and she turns to inspect, only to find yet another turtle sitting atop the rock.

She sighs in exasperation as she gently coaxes it into her hands and stands up for them all to see. “It’s just a turtle, Naruto.”

“It talked!” Naruto exclaims indignantly.

“Don’t be a child,” Sasuke snaps as he helps Naruto to his feet. “Turtles don’t talk.”

“The word is _tortoise_ , not _turtle_ ,” growls a tiny voice. Sakura screams.

“I told you!” Naruto rushes forward, bending over the animal in Sakura’s hands. “It talked!”

“It’s a summon,” Sasuke breathes as he pushes Naruto out of the way, who immediately shoves his way back into the circle.

Several things click into place all at once in Sakura’s mind, and she gasps, “Gai-sensei!”

“Nice to see that one of you has a brain in your head,” grumbles the tortoise in Sakura’s hands. It turns slowly to look at Sakura. “I assume you’re Kakashi’s students? Where is he?”

“Is Gai-sensei coming here?” Sakura asks desperately, barely daring to believe that it could be true. “Is he looking for us?” She can feel the tears rising up again. “Where is he?”

“He’s on his way,” the tortoise says. “He doesn’t know where you are, though.”

Sakura forces down a sob of joy. “Can you tell him? Can you get back to him fast enough?”

“I’m not exactly the speediest,” the tortoise says dryly. “Where’s Kakashi? Can’t he just send one of his idiot ninken to do it? They’ll get there much faster than I will.”

“Sensei’s…” Sakura glances over her shoulder, and the tortoise peers around her. He’s still unmoving except for the shallow movements of his chest.

“Ah. That explains a few things.” The tortoise looks back up at her. “I’ll be back. Be ready.” She lowers her hands to the ground to let it go, and it disappears faster than any tortoise should be able to.

As soon as it’s gone, Sakura turns to the boys, a fever igniting in her stomach, and she snaps, “Pack up, now, go!” and shoves them both towards the shore.

She moves in a frenzy, throwing everything they have into random bags – it doesn’t matter which one, at this point, because they’re saved, Gai-sensei is coming to get them, sensei is going to live and they’re going home and they’ll be able to sleep and eat and they’ll be _safe_ , and they can make it out of this.

She falls to her knees next to sensei and slowly pulls the sweaty blanket away from him, leaving his sweaty chest and dirty bandages exposed to the open air. Gently, she pushes his hair away from his face and lets herself cry for the first time in days. “You’re gonna be okay,” she whispers, holding herself just short of a sob. “We’re going home, sensei.” She lowers her head to his chest and lets the tears come and listens to the sound of his heart, still beating even behind the shallow breaths and closed eyes.

Then there’s the sound of something crashing through the brush behind her, and she jolts up and around and her hands close around something solid and she forces herself away from sensei and has their attacker pinned to the ground and her fist drawn back and ready to strike before she can even think about it, and—

“Sakura-san, it’s me!” Lee squeaks beneath her, grabbing her arm and holding it back before she can hit him.

“Lee-san,” she whispers, and he gently pushes her back.

“It’s okay,” he says, a small smile on his face. “Team Gai is here to save you.” He places both his hands on her fist and slowly the tension and fear drain out of her until she slumps forward towards him and begins to cry in earnest. She feels him awkwardly pat her back, but ignores it. They’re _saved_.

“Lee!” comes a cry out of the forest, and Sakura straightens as Lee calls back, “Gai-sensei!” and a few moments later Gai-sensei himself appears, with the small tortoise seated on his shoulder, Neji and Tenten just behind him.

“Bushy brows-sensei!” Naruto exclaims, rushing forward to grab onto Gai-sensei’s arm. “You have to look at Kakashi-sensei, please, he’s…”

Gai lets himself be dragged forward, coming to kneel by sensei’s side and gently reaching out to touch his hand to the other jounin’s forehead. He breathes out a long hiss between his teeth and calls over his shoulder, “Neji!”

Neji is at his side in an instant, kneeling down next to his sensei and activating his Byakugan. “His chakra flow is slow,” he reports, and Gai-sensei grunts.

“We have to move,” he says as he starts to heft sensei onto his shoulders. Sakura reaches out for them on instinct, afraid that her horrible stitches will tear, that he’ll just start bleeding again, but Lee grabs her hand.

“It’s okay, Sakura-san,” he says with a smile. “Gai-sensei will take care of him.”

“Neji, Lee, Tenten,” Gai barks once he’s standing, sensei slumped over his back. Sakura doesn’t think Gai has ever looked so scary, or that her sensei has ever looked so small. “Help Kakashi’s students – carry them if you have to.”

“Nobody’s carrying me anywhere,” Naruto protests as Tenten steps towards him.

“Naruto, stop it,” Sakura says with a weary shake of her head. “Just let them help.”

“It’s okay, Naruto-kun!” Lee announces as he jumps to his feet. “I’ll carry you, which will make the journey much faster, and you won’t have to endure the burden for nearly as long!”

Naruto has a look of distaste on his face, but looks slightly less reluctant as Lee approaches him. Tenten shakes her head and holds out a hand to Sakura. “Boys,” she grumbles, and Sakura can’t help but smile through the tears on her face.

“Quickly!” Gai-sensei scolds them, and Sakura feels her momentary relief drain out of her, because Gai is never this serious, and the only thing he’s done since he got here is check on sensei, which means something’s probably even more wrong than she thought and… She bites down hard on her bottom lip, tasting blood in her mouth.

“Hey.” Tenten squeezes her hand as she helps her stand up. “Gai-sensei won’t let anything happen to him. Don’t worry.”

“I’ve never seen him this serious before,” Sakura murmurs fearfully.

Tenten smiles at her. “Gai-sensei is always serious. It’s just kind of hard to tell. Don’t worry.”

Sakura climbs onto Tenten’s back and tries to let “don’t worry” be enough comfort. With some reluctance, Naruto climbs on Lee’s back and (with _much_ reluctance) Sasuke climbs on Neji’s, and on Gai’s signal, they head towards home.

* * *

Kakashi wakes with a bang and without warning. He doesn’t even realize that he’s asleep before that – all he remembers is an anger so blinding that it blurs out all else, and then the quiet sting of pain as he falls to his knees.

“My Eternal Rival!” a voice booms next to him. “There’s no use pretending that you’re not awake, I can feel the shift in your chakra!”

And that would explain why he’s awake.

“You can’t mold chakra,” Kakashi accuses without opening his eyes. “So I know that’s complete bullshit.”

“Not being able to mold chakra and not being able to sense it are two very different things, my good friend.” A heavy hand lands on his shoulder and it sends a jolt down Kakashi’s spine, straight to his abdomen where he can already feel the tightness of chakra-glued bandages. He hisses and his eyes fly open to a too-bright, too-white room, and a too-bright, too-white smile.

“I apologize for that, my friend,” Gai says sincerely, his smile softening slightly. But then, that’s how Gai says everything, Kakashi thinks – sincerely, and with a smile.

“How long was I out?” Kakashi asks, groaning as the pain sets in for real. He only vaguely remembers what happened, just the fury of Raikiri and then stabbing pain through his abdomen and then… Everything is a blur after that.

“It’s been two days since my team and I brought you back,” Gai answers. “You woke up only briefly when we returned, muttering something incomprehensible. Though your team says you were out the entire time they were out there, which was at least two days.”

Fear jolts through him inexplicably and he’s sitting up before he can even think about it, though the movement sends pain shooting through his stomach again and he’s doubled over a moment later, grunting as Gai tries to support him and ease him back to the bed. Kakashi fights his grip weakly, growling, “My _team_ …”

“They’re fine,” Gai assures him. “All they needed was some food and rest, and now they’re fine.”

“Naruto’s ankle…”

“Taken care of in mere moments by one of the healers,” Gai promises. He slowly lowers Kakashi back to the bed, nearly flat on his back, and the pain eases, though remnants still linger around the edges of his consciousness.

He grabs Gai’s wrist an fixes him with a steely gaze, both eyes opened. “I want to see them.”

Gai sighs dramatically. “I’ll have them brought in,” he says, and turns to the door. Kakashi closes his eyes when he goes, trying to calm himself, though he gives up quickly. There will be time to be calm when he sees his team whole and healthy in front of him.

Barely ten minutes pass before the doors open and three small bodies practically fling themselves at the bed. He hears Gai caution them, but it comes too late, as something small and pink crashes into his side and something yellow plasters itself to his chest and the dark blue remnant sits awkwardly on the edge of the bed.

“Sakura, Sakura, okay, I’m fine—” He weakly tries to pull her away, hissing through the pain, but Sakura looks up at him and meets him with angry green eyes.

“Don’t ever do that again!” she snaps, poking him hard in the side, and he winces.

“Well, I hadn’t planned on it,” he tells her as Naruto sits up, still straddling his chest. There’s a fear in his eyes that Kakashi doesn’t like to see there. He swears to himself and to Minato-sensei that he’ll never be the one to put that fear there again.

“You’re really okay?” Naruto asks hesitantly.

“He’d probably be better if you weren’t sitting right on top of his injury,” Sasuke points out, and Naruto goes bright red, quickly climbing off the bed and standing on the side opposite to Sakura and Sasuke.

“Thank you, Sasuke,” Kakashi says with a small smile. His student looks away quickly, though Kakashi thinks he catches the hint of a smile in return.

Gai leaves to give them some space, and Kakashi’s team spends the next hour or so filling him in on everything that happened while he was out, which sounds to Kakashi like just a bunch of the usual – Naruto and Sasuke bickering, and Sakura straightening them out. He’s proud of her, though, for remembering _anything_ from his one-time, hasty field medicine instructions given while he patched up Sasuke’s leg during a mission to the southern part of the country. It may not be much, but it’s enough for him.

After a while, Naruto’s stomach starts grumbling, and Sasuke eventually gets frustrated enough with it that he grabs Naruto’s arm and drags him from the room, proclaiming that he doesn’t have to put up with this when there’s perfectly good food in the cafeteria only a few floors below. Kakashi pities Naruto, but he doesn’t say anything out loud about it as he watches them leave.

Kakashi is propped up a little better now, a few pillows under his head to give him some slight elevation without aggravating his injury too badly. Sakura has been relatively quiet for the last little while, tucked in between Kakashi’s arm and side, and even when the boys leave she makes no movement to speak any more.

“Are you all right?” he asks gently, rubbing small circles into her arm. “You’re not hurt, are you? You shouldn’t hide these things. If you need medical attention you should get it.”

“No, I’m fine,” Sakura mumbles, playing with the hem of her dress.

Well, Kakashi’s not in the mood to play that game, so he pokes her gently in the side. She squeals and glares at him, an expression which he returns easily. “What’s wrong?” he asks flatly.

Sakura looks away and mumbles something under her breath.

“I can’t hear you if you don’t speak up,” he reminds her lightly.

She glares at him again. “You sound like my mother.”

He shrugs. “There are worse people to emulate.”

She kicks at the side of the bed with her foot that dangles off the side. “You promised,” she says quietly.

It takes him a moment to catch up with her train of thought, his mind speeding through old memories and trying to remember any sort of promise, until it finally fixes on one from a long time ago, just after their mission to the Land of Waves and their fight with Zabuza. Sakura had woken during the early hours of the morning, jolting out of her sleep with a gasp, and she’d rushed to Kakashi without a second thought.

“None of you can leave me,” she had sobbed into his shirt while he held her, bewildered, and not knowing any better, he had promised her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he had murmured, “and neither are Naruto or Sasuke, I promise.”

It was a stupid promise, he thinks now, squirming internally. People die. Things change and teams adapt and allies come and go and you can never count on one person staying by your side for very long, let alone a whole team. It’s not a lesson he ever wants his students to learn, but it’s likely that they’ll have to. Once they’re chuunin, they’ll work together less and less, and once they make jounin, it will happen even less. It’s how things work – people fight, people get reassigned, people die or retire or get married and things don’t stay the same. It’s true for civilians and it’s doubly true for shinobi. Sakura should know that.

But he looks in her eyes and he sees a twelve year old girl who’s never had a best friend, who has isolated herself from everyone since she started school because they made fun of her – not the way they made fun of Naruto, but still just as hurtful, still just as hard.

Yes, he thinks, it’s a lesson she needs to learn, but it’s not a lesson she needs to learn _now_. There will be time for that later, he decides. For now, he can let her keep on being a child. It’s something not many shinobi get.

Gently, he raises a hand to her head and pulls her into his chest. She wraps her arms around him as best she can with him lying down, and he softly kisses the top of her head. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I’m not leaving you three any time soon, so you don’t have to worry about it, okay?”

She pulls away just enough to look him in the eyes and smiles slightly. “I’ll probably still worry a little if it’s okay with you.”

He smiles back at her and taps her on the nose. “I suppose it’s not something I have much control over, is it?”

She laughs, and Kakashi prays to whoever might be listening ( _Obito, father, sensei, Rin_ ) that his students never have to learn the lesson he did.


End file.
